The Original Tea Partiers: How GOP Insurgents Invented Progressivism
When Sawyer pressed him to do favors for the lumber and railroad industries, La Follette’s stubborn streak returned. He was not yet a passionate crusader, but he took immense pride in his own virtue. Rebelliousness fused with self-righteousness, an explosive combination. He angrily rejected Sawyer’s demands.
.. The party schism was different from any that had preceded it, and the press struggled to label the factions. It did not occur to people to call the two sides progressive and conservative.
.. In 1896, La Follette arrived at the Republican state convention with enough pledged delegates to win the gubernatorial nomination. As if to prove his point about corruption, Stalwart opponents bribed some of his delegates into switching sides, depriving him of victory. In 1898, it happened again. Defiant and undeterred, La Follette prophesied that “temporary defeat often results in a more decided and lasting victory than one which is too easily achieved.”
.. In contrast to Roosevelt’s pragmatic approach, he believed that temporary defeat was preferable to compromised legislation, which would sate public demand for reform without making genuine progress. “In legislation no bread is often better than half a loaf,” he argued. “Half a loaf, as a rule, dulls the appetite, and destroys the keenness of interest in attaining the full loaf.” Legislative defeat, on the other hand, served a useful political purpose. He would use the defeat of a popular bill to bludgeon his opponents in the next election, and he would keep assailing them with it until they yielded or lost their seats.